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As has been recently announced, nominations are open for the 2025 Linux Foundation Technical Advisory Board (TAB) elections. I am one of the TAB members whose term is coming to an end, but I have decided that, after 18 years on the board, I will not be seeking re-election; instead, I will step aside and make room for a fresh voice. My time on the TAB has been rewarding, and I will be sad to leave; the TAB has an important role to play in the functioning of the kernel community.
Some history
Back in the early 2000s, an industry group was formed under the name of the Open Source Development Laboratory, or OSDL; its role was to help encourage the development of Linux in ways that suited its members. It is fair to say that OSDL got off to a rough start; it had a habit of releasing "specifications", starting with Carrier Grade Linux, that came across as marching orders to the kernel community. Said community was even less receptive to marching orders back then than it is now; the result was a lot of friction, with OSDL failing to make the sort of headway that it (and its sponsors) would have liked.
That friction can be seen, for example, in our coverage of the 2004 Kernel Summit, where various frustrations were raised. Kernel developers asked for community representation on the OSDL board and a more open process for the development of specifications, for example. In 2005, Greg Kroah-Hartman pulled together a group of kernel developers to try to push OSDL in a more community-friendly direction. He followed up in 2006 with a long list, produced by that group of developers, of changes OSDL could make to improve the situation. That list included facilitating access to proprietary hardware documentation, creating a travel fund for developers to get to events, creation of a US-based technical conference, and:
We really need a technical writer dedicated to help keeping the in-kernel documentation up to date and relevant. The kernel developers are much better at writing code than documenting it, and if there was someone watching over this, and bugging the developers to keep it up to date when it lapses, it would help out immensely.
That, alas, has never really come to be, though some attempts were made. But OSDL did eventually accede to most of the group's other requests, including establishing the travel fund and assisting with the creation of the Linux Plumbers Conference, which was indeed US-based for many years.
There was another item on the wishlist, though: the creation of a technical advisory board made up of community members as a way for the community to be heard within OSDL. Tied to that was a request for the community to hold a seat on the OSDL board of directors. In March 2006, OSDL announced the creation of the TAB, with an initial membership of James Bottomley, Wim Coekaerts, Randy Dunlap, Kroah-Hartman, Christoph Lameter, Olivia Mackall, Ted Ts'o, Arjan van de Ven, and Chris Wright. The TAB, in turn, would hold the asked-for seat on the OSDL board. After years of requests, the kernel community had a say in how OSDL made its decisions.
At the beginning of 2007, though, OSDL was no more; it was folded into the Free Standards Group, run at the time by Jim Zemlin, and renamed the Linux Foundation. The combination of the pre-merger changes and the new leadership led to a refocused organization that has served the community well ever since.
Yes, one need not go too far to hear grumbles about the Linux Foundation, and many of them are deserved. But one should not lose track of the many things the Linux Foundation does to benefit our community, including:
- The Linux Foundation employs Linus Torvalds, Kroah-Hartman and Shuah Khan as fellows, allowing them to focus on the kernel full time and isolating them from any vendor's agenda. It also supports other developers to carry out specific tasks for the kernel.
- It organizes successful conferences around the world, from trade shows to highly technical gatherings; the days of holding the Kernel Summit in a shopping-mall basement are a distant memory now.
- The Linux Foundation funds and operates the kernel.org infrastructure and supports the development of tools like b4.
- It still maintains the travel fund, which enables developers to attend events that would otherwise be inaccessible to them.
- The Linux Foundation has done a great deal of work to educate companies on how to work with our process and make the kernel better. Its mentorship program has brought a number of new developers into our community.
- It has provided legal expertise in many areas, including influencing the European Cyber Resilience Act to be more friendly toward free software.
And so on. It should also be mentioned that the Linux Foundation has long sponsored LWN's travel to events all over the world so that we can all keep up with what is happening in our community.
Election
In 2007, I sent in a nomination for the first actual election for members to the Linux Foundation TAB; the results saw me elected, along with Van de Ven, Kroah-Hartman, Lameter, and Olaf Kirch. I have served on the TAB continuously since then, for a total of 18 years now.
That time has been interesting in many ways. We have, over the years, responded to the kernel.org breakin, the disclosure of Meltdown and Spectre, various ups and downs of the Linux Plumbers Conference, the University of Minnesota scandal, the events leading to the community's code of conduct, the kernel's response to international sanctions, numerous disagreements between the community and various corporations, and disagreements within the community itself, among many other things. We even tried to bring in a paid documentation writer (funded by the Linux Foundation) for a while.
The role of the TAB now is somewhat different from what was originally envisioned. The Linux Foundation rarely seeks our advice, so our "technical advisory" role is limited. The organization does listen when we have something to say, but does not often start the conversation. Instead, the TAB has become a sort of governing board in a community that has no governing boards. It tries to chart a path through difficult situations, such as the adoption of a code of conduct or, more recently, the process of deciding what the community's policy toward machine-generated contributions should be. The TAB talks to people to de-escalate conflicts. And it still oversees the Linux Plumbers Conference.
The TAB has almost no power at all; it cannot compel anybody to do anything. But it does have influence. At any given time, the TAB membership represents many decades (if not centuries) of community experience; somebody generally knows the right person to talk to when there is a situation to address. It has, and will hopefully maintain, sufficient respect within the community that its members will be listened to. The TAB also plays an important information-exchange role, with members informing the group of developments that they should be aware of.
My role there has often been on the information-sharing side, since I spend a lot of time keeping an eye on obscure corners of the community. The TAB has, at times, been happy to let me do some of its writing. I have run elections and helped organize the Linux Plumbers Conference, and more. It has been a good time.
While the role of the TAB has evolved over the years, I believe that it is as important as it ever was, and I am proud to have been a part of it. After 18 years, though, I begin to think that perhaps I occupied that seat for long enough, and that it is time to let another member of the community take that place. Lest anybody worry: my retirement from the TAB is not a retirement from the community or from LWN; I expect to be around for a while yet.
I would encourage all members of our community to consider putting in their
nomination to be a part of the TAB going forward. It is a way to help keep
our community strong and to widen your view of how the whole system works.
The TAB still has the important role of helping the Linux Foundation stay
relevant and useful for the kernel community. And the members of the TAB
are a great group of people to work with. I will be sad to leave this
group, and wish my best to my successor. Many thanks to all of you for 18
great years.